Kevin Pangos has basketball in his blood — and hopes to, one day, have an NBA team’s logo on his chest.

Kevin Pangos plays in a Canada vs. U.S. match during the 2010 FIBA U17 World Championship in Hamburg, Germany.

By:Dan RobsonStaff Reporter, Published on Sun Mar 06 2011

Before all the hype — the college scouts, the national team appearances, the highlight reels and the Steve Nash comparisons — Kevin Pangos was throwing foam basketballs through a tiny hoop fastened to the wall in his red and white bedroom.

Above the plastic rim hung a poster of a young boy sitting on a basketball in a mid-century, mid-America gym. The boy was looking up at the wooden backboard, next to the words of Langston Hughes:

“Hold fast to dreams.”

That rim is long broken, a casualty of too many tiny basketballs and one boy’s unyielding determination to become everything he dreamed of. But the poster remains.

Today, Pangos is one of the top young basketball players in Canada. Last summer, he wore the national colours on his chest at the FIBA Under-17 World Championships in Germany, where he was named the point guard on the international all-star team.

And next fall, the 18-year-old product of Dr. John Denison Secondary School in Newmarket is heading to Gonzaga University on a full scholarship.

“I wanted to play for Canada, I wanted to get an NCAA scholarship, and I want to play in the NBA,” Pangos says, recalling the goals he set when he was still a kid, slam-dunking on a miniature net in the basement of his family’s home in Holland Landing, Ont.

They are the kinds of lofty goals that many aspire to, but which most lack the blueprint to achieve. Pangos’s blueprint was drawn up in 1987, when a point guard named Bill met a forward named Patty at Olympia Sports Camp in Huntsville.

The couple built their family on the lessons of sport. They spent nights playing “triathlons” of baseball, football and soccer on their front lawn with Kevin and his older sister Kayla.

“If you asked me and Kevin, we’d say we always won,” says Patty, who always teamed with her son. “If you ask Bill and Kayla, they’d say they always won.”

Despite the sporting variety, basketball was their love.

Patty (who is on the sports wall of fame at McMaster University) is a physical education teacher at Dr. Denison, which both her kids attended. Bill, who played for the University of Toronto, has been the head coach of York University’s women’s basketball team for 24 seasons. Kayla Pangos is a second-year point guard on his team.

Without a local basketball association in their area, the couple founded their own — the East Gwillimbury Huskies Basketball Club. Growing up, Kevin always played above his age level in the league, while also playing every other sport he could.

Finally, in Grade 11, he committed to basketball full-time.

“I could do it forever and not get sick of it,” he says. “Every moment I’m playing, I love it.”

“He thinks the game like a coach,” says Lloyd, who expects Pangos to start for the Bulldogs as a freshman. “He has a great skill level in shooting, handling and passing the ball.”

That incredible skill was on display two weeks ago, when the Dr. Denison Huskies took on the Vaughan Voyageurs in the York Region finals. Pangos dropped 42 points in a losing effort against the Voyageurs, the No. 1 ranked team at the quad-A OFSAA Boys’ Basketball Championships in London this week.

Earlier in the season, at a St. Mike’s invitational, Pangos scored 48 points in a game against Vaughan.

Because of Dr. Denison’s size, it falls into the triple-A category, and is ranked No. 2 at this week’s OFSAA AAA Boys’ Basketball Championships in Niagara Falls.

“We’ve done so many great things, but we don’t have any banners in our gym to show for it,” Pangos said of his team, mostly made up of seniors he has played with for years.

“I’d love to win an OFSAA championship.”

For Pangos, it might be one more hoop dream achieved.

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